Astonishingly and deplorably enough these are the only songs by Warlock in the current CD catalogue; this account of The Curlew, surely his most important single work, is the only version at present available in any recording medium. We must be grateful, therefore, despite the fairly poor value of a 43 - minute CD (poorer than it seems, actually: the timing of 3'19'' quoted for ''How many miles to Babylon?'', the first of the five Nursery Jingles, is in fact the duration of the entire set) and the fact that these are good rather than ideal performances. Griffett's voice is a not especially characterful one, but he uses it sensitively, especially in the hushed mezza-voce that is his strong suit. Under pressure, however (and he is the sort of singer who resists verbal acting, so pressure is his principal means of conveying intensity), a slightly nasal edge becomes noticeable. His diction is a touch less than immaculate (no texts are supplied to make up the deficiency); occasional words are swallowed and other distorted (frequent references in The Curlew to 'weentry weends'). But oh! how much sooner I would have this recording of The Curlew than none at all, and it does have much to commend it: beautiful instrumental playing (the lamenting curlew, the warbling peewit, the soughing sedges all subtly evoked), a real feeling from all concerned for the shadowed poignancy that Warlock sustains so compellingly for nearly 25 minutes, and from Griffett himself a sober sincerity that can be affecting and effective.
Most of the remaining songs show Warlock in one of his other characteristic moods, spicing melodic lines rooted in the first Elizabethan age with luscious chromaticisms from his own (the third Warlock, the back-slapping, beer-swigging extrovert roisterer, is not represented, thank goodness). In the best of them (Mourn no Moe, My gostly fader and above all Sleep) he uses the tension between an archaism that is more than pastiche and a harmony that is rather more than secondhand Delius as a delicately and precisely expressive instrument. The Nursery Jingles are innocent and pretty trifles, no more, but The fairest May (an improved variant of the much better-known As ever I saw) is a mock-lute-song of great charm. Warlock was in the habit of providing alternative quartet accompaniments for his songs, and all are here performed in that form (a few arranged for the medium by the Warlock authority Fred Tomlinson). The recorded sound is clean and very pleasing.'